JOANNE sat poolside with a screaming child. The toddler’s swimming lesson had ended with a meltdown.

Her screeches cut through the aquatic centre. The sooner they left the better.

She’d dressed kids quickly a thousand times.It’s what nannies do. She whisked the little girl from the pool, into her car and home. A good outcome for everyone, most would think.

Everyone except for the picky mother back at home.

She glared her disapproval at her two-year-old daughter’s hasty dressing. The buttons on her fine floral shirt were not done up. Her collar was not neatly folded over her cream cardigan. This was not good enough. The nanny had to go.

Joanne was paid out till the end of the week, left the house and never saw them again.

In another part of Melbourne, Elizabeth started her Monday morning with a strip-down of the eight beds in the family’s vast house.

Not all of them have been slept in this week - since she did it last Monday, when she washed the lot then, dried them and ironed every crease.

Unlike Mary Poppins, being a nanny is not all fun and games.Source: News Limited

Mary Poppins never had to do this. Nor the grating Miss Fine in the 1980s sit-com The Nanny.

And Joanne and Elizabeth were not their real names. These Melbourne nannies need jobs to go to when things occasionally turn sour. They can’t be seen to talk — they just have to move on and leave the family to the next unsuspecting nanny.

A reference from the last family they nannied is everything.

What happens in the family home stays there. There are confidentiality agreements signed.

For good reason, it seems. But sometimes things are so nuts they have to be shared.

These stories — and hundreds more that nannies laugh at between themselves over coffee — have helped the industry of between 30,000 and 80,000 Australian nannies (the industry is full of unregistered contractors) get a dud deal.

Nanny Fine from TV show The Nanny made it look like a doddle - but it’s not.Source: News Limited

Young nannies are most likely to agree to unreasonable conditions.

The one who worked with a UK horse trainer described her mounting workload.

“When the cleaner left they didn’t replace her. Then the chef went on maternity leave. So I was the nanny, the cleaner and the cook,” she said.

And I put up with it. It was ridiculous — I had to cook for Andrew Lloyd Weber one night.”

They aren’t cleaners. They aren’t gourmet chefs.

They shouldn’t have to pick up the dog poo from the back yard.

They can’t be expected to go four weeks without a day off.

But they do. And when parents who can’t afford them hear the worst stories they begrudge the overkill and relegate nannies to the homes of the rich and ridiculous.

It has helped mould opinion reflected in government policy. The excesses of a minority of families who use nannies mean the sector hasn’t been dealt equal access to the Federal Government’s Childcare rebate.

She advocates strict rules for nannies which are all detailed in extensive checklists. The children can be taken to the park only with permission and the nanny must only use the back elements on the stove.

There is a “nanny phone” which they must use rather than their own iPhones, and must keep a communication journal.

“I am very controlling and you have to be. You have to treat them like an employee. I do want my children to love them — just no kissing on the lips,” she told the Herald Sun in March.

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